I’m Troubled in Mind (orch. Thomas Beijer)

Program notes

About the Work

‘I’m Troubled in Mind’ is an African American spiritual, one of the sacred folk songs born among enslaved people in the American South, whose simple, profound melodies and texts of suffering and hope are among the deepest roots of American music. Like all spirituals it is credited to ‘Traditional’: its original creators are unknown, the song handed down through generations before being written down and arranged for the concert platform.

Here it is heard in an orchestral arrangement by the Dutch pianist-composer Thomas Beijer, sung by the bass-baritone Davóne Tines, a singer who has made the spiritual and the legacy of Paul Robeson central to his art. Placed within this festival programme, it connects the symphonic works around it to the living wellspring of the folk tradition from which so much Black American music flows.

What to Listen For

This is a short, deeply felt song, so simply let the melody and the voice carry you. Listen for the plain, aching beauty of the spiritual’s tune, and for the weight of feeling the bass-baritone brings to its words of trouble and faith. Beijer’s orchestration will frame the voice in warm instrumental colour; the art here is in restraint and sincerity rather than display: a moment of intimate, sorrowing song amid the larger orchestral canvases of the evening.